Two major research studies this year point to the same conclusion: the way most firms pursue business development is backwards. The Day One Shortlist Problem The 6sense 2025 Buyer Experience Report surveyed 4,000+ B2B buyers (roughly a third from professional services firms) and found that 94% rank their preferred vendors before  first contact with sellers. The Day One Shortlist now captures 95% of eventual wins. By the time a buyer reaches out, the competition is essentially

A founder I advise recently said something that stopped me cold: "The earnout really works against investment." He runs a mid-sized consulting firm, the kind that punches above its weight, working with Fortune 2000 logos despite a lean team. He's on the goal line of closing a deal with a PE-backed acquirer. Good multiple. Reasonable terms. Significant earnout tied to EBITDA growth over three years, heavily weighted to the first year. And he's already seeing the problem. The S

Professional services firms are way behind SaaS when it comes to go-to-market. This isn't news to you. You know it. But here's what's interesting: you don't need to catch up to SaaS. You just need a simple, repeatable system that doesn't depend on the founder or two rainmakers who generate 80% of new business. Most PS firms I work with run lean. There's no dedicated marketing ops person. No RevOps team. No SDRs. Business development happens when partners have time between bil

For decades, professional services firms have operated on a simple formula: thought leadership plus relationships equals growth. Hire smart people (PhDs, top-tier MBAs, deep domain experts), extract their insights into publishable content, and trust that strong client relationships will follow. For twenty years, this was the playbook. It's no longer enough. Early in my career, I led US marketing and business development for a global HR consulting firm. We had brilliant consul

The Annual Planning Ritual November and December. Conference rooms across the professional services world fill with strategic planning sessions. Whiteboards covered with ambitious goals. Flip charts mapping new market positioning. Spreadsheets projecting 25% growth. CEOs leave these sessions energized. Finally, a clear roadmap. This year will be different. By March, 90% of these strategic initiatives are dead. Not paused. Not delayed. Dead. The positioning project that would

There's an arms race happening in sales right now, and it's absurd. On one side: AI-powered SDRs that can scrape LinkedIn, generate personalized emails, send text messages, and spam prospects at ten times the volume of any human sales team. On the other side: AI-powered gatekeepers that screen calls, filter emails, and block the spam with increasing sophistication. The result? AI is fighting AI. And the humans—the actual buyers—are hiding behind their digital walls, unreachab

"We work with companies across industries." I hear this from consulting and training firm leaders all the time. They see it as a strength—versatility, broad capability, ability to serve anyone. It's actually a weakness. And it's probably limiting your growth more than any other single factor. After 25 years in professional services—including roles at Hay Group, Miller Heiman, Richardson, and dozens of consulting engagements—I've seen one pattern repeat over and over: firms th

LinkedIn connections have become a vanity metric for many consulting and training firm leaders. Ten thousand connections. Twenty thousand. The number feels like an accomplishment—proof of reach and influence. But here's what I've learned working with dozens of professional services firms: network size is almost meaningless. What matters is network quality. Four thousand connections with 70% match to your ideal client profile will generate more business than twenty thousand ra

After years of client work, most consulting and training firms have accumulated something valuable: intellectual property. Frameworks developed across dozens of engagements. Methodologies refined through repeated application. Training materials created for client projects. Best practices documented from successful implementations. Templates, tools, models, approaches—all the content that makes your work effective. This IP represents years of investment. You built it through h

Every consulting and training firm needs thought leadership. It builds credibility. It generates visibility. It differentiates you from competitors. It gives buyers a reason to believe you know what you're talking about. But there's a problem with how most firms build thought leadership: they build it around a single person. Usually the founder. Sometimes a charismatic partner. One individual becomes the voice of the firm—the one who writes the articles, delivers the keynotes